


The Countess and her General

by sinousine



Series: The General [2]
Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: F/F, Xeno, Xenophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-28
Updated: 2014-09-28
Packaged: 2018-02-19 02:20:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 4,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2370869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinousine/pseuds/sinousine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some fragments describing the alternate universe of Countess Dooku and General Grievous - a galaxy inhabited by many interesting women - kind or cruel, young or old, wise or foolish. Some are not human - just like Qaian jai Sheelal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

They were sworn sisters, flying wing-to-wing. Soaring over the sea, seeing the houses-on-hill with their radio antennae, grand manors where merchants lived, places of learning for stuffy scholars with hanging gardens fade from the horizon. Skipping over chain islands, rising far above flocks of white birds into the black of space. Stars - other suns - overhead and the blue arc of Mother Kalee below.

They were of one mind - when they passed thunderclouds, Ronderu’s voice would echo in Qaian’s mind, telling where to fly, where the enemy might be hiding. When hugging land, they had each others backs and the rain of gunfire could not touch them. At their encampment overlooking the river valley, they shared their dreams - two halves of a god.

The priest blessed the two of them, calling them the Dreamer and the Devil in the Dream - the event was recorded on countless cameras and broadcast across the world. The crowds cheered, now they had their heroes, saviors of civilization.

When Ronderu had been washed out to sea that day, unable to stand on her two feet, Sheelal felt the scissor sever the thread that had tied them so closely together.

_Now you are only half a god._


	2. A Shame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soong Hill thinks about her latest project. Some violent descriptions.

It’s shame that they had to cut up your pretty face, Soong Hill thinks, gazing upon her “project” - now asleep and unmasked.

She’d been a connoisseur - gluttonously drinking wine and down chunks of meat, sweet desserts, savoring, devouring.

Qaian no longer had a mouth - or the lower half of her digestive tract, for that matter.

You won’t be needing those any more, the Muun smirked, remembering her lips pressed against Qaian’s. The metallic tang of blood - wiping off the corner of her mouth with a handkerchief. 

_Get away from me._

Kaleesh - well, all immature species - were hopelessly emotional. Soong Hill had offered Qaian the world - freedom from hunger, freedom from cold…pleasure - and then some. And yet she had rejected all of these and boarded a ship with all of her paramours.

 _Running away are you?_ One does not simply break contract with The Banking Clan.

 _Did you pray to your ancestors to save you when your ship went down?_  The Muun imagined the General, crucified on the twisted metal of the cockpit, impaled through the gut. The rescue team had worked quickly to cut her free, non-vital parts excluded.

The General had offspring back on Kalee, and a beast of a bond-mate. Soong Hill looked down at Qaian’s exposed organs. The metal beam had gone right through her belly. There had been organs too mangled to save.

You won’t be needing those any more. No more squawping hatchlings. No more pleasures of the flesh. No more smelling, no more tasting.

Encased inside this new body, this suit of armor - 

 _You’re dead, nothing can harm you now_ , Soong Hill whispers. You might as well be.


	3. Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bentilais regards his bond-mate for the first time after her transformation.

Bentilais had always been a giant among his kind.

Even now the tip of Sheelal’s head barely came up to his shoulders. There had been a time when she disappeared into him, wrapped in his tattered feather cape like a seabird whose wings had been broken. Small and sad -

She backed out of the embrace, letting his pawlike hands let go of her skeleton-thin fingers. Her hands were cold, as if he were touching the hands of a marble tomb effigy.

Bentilais stepped back and took another look at the one before him. Silver moonlight filled the courtyard - more than enough to throw the two of them into full view. Sheelal was apparition-like against the greens and browns of the courtyard. She let the translucent shawl upon her head and shoulders fall away. She was clad in a stone-like material that gleamed white than bone. This armor concealed her face like the mumuu mask she had worn during the Long War. It framed the sides of her skull as two antenna-horns. It made up the jutting pauldrons on her shoulders, the collar of her neck, the two chestplates enfolding her torso, the sharp bracers on her forearms, the cuisses on her thighs, diamond-shaped kneeplates, the flared greaves covering her lower legs. She had the feet of a gigantic, alien bird - long and powerful, with side gleaming black toes each.

From within this suit of armor Bentilais could not detect the familiar warmth of Qaian, nor the sweet smell of the nest. The bitter odor - it reminded him of the Muun ship, the table with sharp instruments, the glass tank full of unfamiliar fluid -

On her part, Sheelal regarded Bentilais, her yellow eyes half-lidded, pupils wide, expression unreadable behind her mask. These eyes - although they gleamed with an unnaturally bright glow - were unmistakable.

Sk’ar the Brute: how pained his expression looked! How the lines of his face were deeper than they had been since she last saw him peering through the glass. How his eyes flattened and his jaw trembled. A weight was pressing on his whole being - his dead comrades, his suffering homeworld, his beloved -

She chuckled - or whatever that low sound was that belonged to another world that reverberated from within the armor. It was then she guided his hand to the juncture at the center of her chest. By some unseen mechanism an opening in the armor appeared and his forearm slipped inside.

His palm met with warm, soft material. He could feel a steady pulsing under his hand - yes, a heartbeat.

"You’re alive," he said a second time. But this time, he was sure.

"Yes, it seems that we both have more to do in the land of the living."

 

 


	4. Contact

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Countess enters Grievous' mind for the first time.

_Let me in._

Her thought-voice become soft, brushing up against the heavy door of a seemingly impregnable fortress.  
The Countess eased against the barrier, becoming a stream that flowed through the gap at the bottom of the door. The water was warm, comforting. Jaris’ mind finally brushed the General’s - an alien, barbed-edged thing, a gaping wound.  
Reaching further into the General’s mind, Jaris could sense that someone had been there before. Kummar.  
There was a hollow, an empty nest made of branches, long abandoned - waiting for a bird to perch upon it. There were bones and feathers strewn here and there, evidence that a predator had raided the nest. Stepping forward, Jaris lay down inside the hollow - and found her arms around the sole inhabitant of the nest, who was sleeping here.  
Qaian stirred, turning around to regard the visitor to her home with curiosity. The strange being pallid skin and a hook nose - she did not shrink in fear.  
For too many years there was a space inside Qaian where silence and darkness existed when there was once trilling laughter and lilting music.  
Now there was someone else here, now the nest was no longer empty - Qaian’s real body had moved, the snout of her faceplate brushing against the human woman’s neck. She turned to face The Countess, regarding her with those golden eyes, and curled her bone-white fingers around Jaris' own.


	5. Flagship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Countess and the General name their flagship.

The General regarded the schematic for the gigantic ship on a large touch screen, changing the focus with a flick of her bony fingers. It was a marvel of Quarren design of construction, reminding the general of a gigantic black fish.  
"A fine flagship. I shall call it Malevolence."  
Countess Dooku put her hand out to stop Grievous.  
"Now General, as imposing a name as ‘Malevolence’ might be, I think it’s a tad too…malevolent. The mission of the New Order is introducing benevolent rule to the Galaxy and the names of our vessels must reflect this."  
Whenever Grievous was allowed to name things, she had the tact of a 15-year-old boy acting out his most violent power fantasy. It was a bad enough idea to let the General use the name she picked for herself when she was first learning Basic. General Grievous? That was straight out of a children’s cartoon. The Soulless One? Well at least it was a personal starfighter, and not the flagship of the Separatist fleet. It wouldn’t surprise the Countess if one day the General would name a landspeeder the Legacy of Torment or the Lance of Conquest or something unbelievably tacky like that. That’s why she was here. To prevent such a thing from happening.

"What name do you have in mind, my lady?"  
"Well, I was thinking ‘Angel of Thunder’ - your people believe in an Angel of Thunder, do they not?"  
"The Angel of Thunder has the power to destroy mountains and vaporize enemy armies. I agree, it is a good name."  
And thus the mighty flagship of the Separatist fleet was christened the Angel of Thunder.


	6. Mind Castle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Qaian wakes.

Qaian opened her eyelids and was greeted by an unfamiliar sky. She stretched her hands - there was grass under her fingers. She was lying in a meadow - no, a walled garden. There were countless white and yellow flowers blooming and the walls of a courtyard of some sort stretched into the sky.   
She stretched her legs and looked down. With a gasp, Qaian realized she was completely naked. She got up, frantically searching for something to cover her nakedness. There was a white sheet beside her. Qaian tied it around her shoulders, a makeshift cape. 

Qaian took a closer look at her surroundings. Although the sky was a deceptively familiar pale blue and the sun as yellow as Imanec, something was off about this place. She sniffed the air, searching for traces of another living being. Finding none, she turned back to the dark stone archways flanking the garden. This place appeared to be a castle, but belonging to who?  
Qaian walked barefoot through the courtyard. Where the sunlight shone through the columns, motes of dust floated here and there. She turned around, unsure which direction to go. The four doors on all sides were identical to each other.  
Might as well pick one.  
Deciding on that door, Qaian stepped inside the castle proper.

-

Qaian walked barefoot down a flight of stairs. The entire castle was carved from the same dark stone - every room was adorned with the same alien geometric patterns - circles,   
At the foot of the first flight of stairs she caught a whiff of something. The odor was pleasant. 

Qaian climbed down the stairs, following the trail of petals.

-

There was a bed room, with a clean set of clothes folded on top of the bed. A glass bowl with freshly-plucked flowers sits on a stone table. Qaian changed into the white gown, slipping a white, fringed shawl over her red shoulders.

She wondered who could have placed the clothes on the bed. So far she had not seen a single sentient being in this place, other than herself. She turns to the bookshelf next to the bed. There are books stacked here - it seemed that whoever lived here had no abandoned print-and-paper. She picks up one of the leather-bound tomes, flipping through the pages. She feels like she's is intimately familiar with its contents, and yet its like no book she's read before. There is an illustration of a spaceship, all blocky, painted brown with a red insignia. There is a ziggurat with steep stairs, half-shadowed in the evening light. There are green hills and a brilliant blue-green sea. A lonely crescent moon shining on that sea, the sun sinking beyond the horizon. There is a hero in the story, with eyes like a hawk, leaving on a mission far away.

She spent a long time with the bookshelf, not realizing that in her dream state it told the story of her life.

-

She decided that this place must be her castle, her home. She could will the heavy doors at the base of the mountain to open and close. She danced about the empty halls as if she were a pullet courting the alpine springtime, twirling her shawl behind her. She threw flowers from the second floor of the courtyard, swinging around the staircase as she runs down the steps. In the black stone bathtub in her room, she curled her toes and let the water overflow, finally closing her eyes.

-

There are no mirrors in this place, every metal surface too scuffed and scratched to reflect her face back at her. Her footfalls are much heavier than a hen her size, and more metallic than they ought to. She does not wonder why the flowers in the courtyard have no scent, or why she never feels a lick of hunger.

-

There is an armory. Someone has polished the weapons until they gleam and placed them in glass boxes.

-

Grievous emerges from sleep and is surrounded by the gray padding of the stasis pod. Outside, a console gives a readout of the Invisible Hand's current position, their current time and location. Looking down, she sees that her hands are white and bony instead of red and scaly.

-

Something was in here, in the armory.   
Something had tracked water on the black stone floor.  
Qaian hugged her white shawl closer, walking through the room. Her footfalls were unusually heavy as she walked -  
Progressing through suits of armor that were illuminated like museum pieces, without warriors to wear them. Weapons, arranged in rows - pikes, sabers, rifles - by make and year. Disembodied faces in the form of bone masks, their eye sockets empty. Metal arms and legs strung up from the ceiling, without a spark of life to them. She didn’t remember arranging them this way, like a many-headed, many-armed monster.

Qaian stopped and listened. A faint, squirming sound could be heard further down the hall. Turning to the weapon rack, she picked up an energy pike, igniting it. Purple sparks crackled loudly off either end, a warning to the intruder to back off.

"Get out of my house."

-

She told nobody about the thing. The thing with squirming, crawling tendrils. The thing without bones, crawling through the air vents, following her from room to room, slinking with a wet squelch. As long as she was awake the thing could not follow her out of the mind-castle.

She eyed the gray pod behind the command chair. The tubes housing the electrical wiring reminded her of long, fat worms. Written on the module was the name “DURGA” in Aurebesh, followed by an illustration of a grinning warrior in full body armor, her face flanked by two tusked mouth flaps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had the idea that when Grievous goes into "recharge" she goes to a place that looks like the castle on Vassek's moon. She appears in this place as she was before becoming a cyborg.  
> Durga is an AI hooked to the Invisible Hand. She is personified as an armor-clad Gen'dai.


	7. Wedding dress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaris tells a fairy tale.

"Once upon a time, there was a Countess who was to be married. On her wedding day, she wore a white dress."

"A  _white_  wedding dress?” Grievous asked, shocked. 

"Yes, it’s the customary color for Serennian women."

"But why?"

"Long ago, there was an acolyte who had reached the end of her apprenticeship. She had trained long and hard under her Lord, who she had known since childhood. Her master had chosen a mate for her, and a wedding day was decided. But she was not happy - because her heart belonged to her master. On that day there was a crowd gathered in the Temple to witness the union. She was wearing a simple white gown. Before the eyes of everybody gathered there, she drew a concealed sword and slew her master on the spot - this was the final test. As she did, his red blood stained her white gown. Wherever she went, she wore the evidence of the deed in plain view. For her boldness, she became the talk of the people. Her infamy and power grew, and she became known for her white dress. And thus on their important day, Serennian women wear white."

Grievous looked back at the Countess, dumbfounded. Who knew that a planet like Serenno could be home to such a hot-blooded heroine. How…romantic.

"That’s the popular tale. Of course, it really wasn’t that gruesome. There was a noblewoman Demici who wanted to impress her wedding guests. Since her family and planet were rich, she ordered a sumptuous dress that was easily soiled by virtue of its color. Her father was so moved when she stepped out into the courtyard of the temple, that he fainted. Naturally, everyone wanted to follow the trend Lady Demici set."

"So I presumed."

The General heaved a sigh of disappointment, imagining Qays - already reunited with the gods - Qays, who’d wooed her mother - fainting from sheer joy in the place of the elder Lord Demici.

"But, they say the family had connections with the Sith Order of the time. Lady Demici had powers of beguilement that were unrivalled, and so did her entire line."

The Countess looked up to the painting on the wall. There was an orchard with a grapevine, and a procession. There was a human with long, dark, braided hair in a deep purple gown who wore a smirk upon her face.

-

In her dream there is the castle with the tall double doors, carved into the bowels of the mountain. They swing open, expecting the master of the house.

There is mist swirling around her feet - her legs red, soft, young as she walks through the double doors.

There is a courtyard and a meadow dotted with many flowers. There are black stone columns and hanging shrubs.

The Countess is waiting for her, her silver hair hanging down her back and a goblet in one hand, red flower clutched in the other. Black silk and the gleaming jewels sewn into her dress. 

She steps forward to be undressed by this alien - this intruder. Her tattered uniform falls away, her mask in the Countess’s left hand.

The Countess flicks the tips of her fingers and a white, shimmering gown is pulled from the very atoms of the air. Qaian raises her arms through the sleeves to accept this gift. The way the fabric falls against her chest, her back, her thighs - it is a perfect fit.

It is like wearing the evening sky, or a bright summer cloud. It is being embraced by the warm waters of the sea. The Countess bares her teeth, turning her mouth upwards in a “smile”, brings her hands together to make a clapping noise.

Thunderous applause as she walks down the airstrip to the waiting shuttle. She greets the crowd wearing this robe of finest white. It changes shape, trailing behind her. It becomes a regal uniform, a protective shield against the assassin’s gunfire, the white-hot blade of the Jedi Knight.

In private it becomes a silken slip, weightless. The Countess is there too, pouring another glass of wine. The blood of a pomegranate clutched in Qaian’s hands. There are candles - eight total. They are almost spent, the wax pooled in the brass holder. The Countess brings a hand to Qaian’s soft neck, stroking it gently. Her nails are perfectly trimmed, her lipstick dark. She kisses the black feathers on Qaian’s head.

The flowers in the meadow swell to enormous size - there is a gold leaf halo around the sun, around the saints in the painting on the wall - the flowers ripen and the red petals wither and fall away - the gown billows open in the front -

A miraculous garment - it is everything she could wish for. Qaian wonders how she ever settled for commoners rags.


	8. Second Sight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grievous reads others.

Humans are deceptive beings.

From Asajj Ventress she learns to read their emotions - anger, fear, shame, joy - each with its distinct heat signature. The heat in the head, the coldness in the hands and feet. Ventress is an open book - all emotion.

Humans can say one thing, but mean another. Diplomats, tyrants, misers…Jedi. Even the Countess, master of control, could be read. Waves of seething contempt for Viceroy Gunray and the others on the Separatist council. A disquiet in her chest back on Valahari, or when speaking of the Order. Disapproval when they sparred.

She is glad that the Geonosians left that part of her face intact. For Grievous there is no light and dark - only place where there was a warmth presence, or a cold absence. Darkness could not obscure what was in front of her eyes. 

In crowds, at “peace talks”, beside the Countess, she’d stand without moving, without betraying her inner thoughts, picking out the liars, the fearful and panicked ones, from the flush of their exposed skin. Always with one hand ready to draw out her weapon at the first sign of danger. 

So it was to her unending frustration that when it came to Lord Sidious, she was met by an immovable wall. This was the thing about holograms - they were flat, inscrutable. Sidious was masked in secrecy and cold absence.

But as soon as such thoughts came, a vague presence in the back of her mind - like the twinkling of stars or an echo underwater - reassured her and she felt that Lord Sidious was the most trustworthy being in the universe. 


	9. The Jedi in the Photograph

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grievous learns that Jaris has been to Kalee before.

Qaian’s grandmother had kept a battered photograph close to her heart; in it she is seated with a group of soldiers, slinging her rifle over one shoulder. In front of the soldiers there are two humans in simple robes, holding their hands to their hips, legs splayed out. 

Two Jedi.

Grandmother Yellowbeard had told her about them - how they had come from afar to warn the Kaleesh of an imminent danger: the spiny Bittaevrians with scrunched up faces. The Jedi trained them, prepared them to face this strange foe. Thousands of young hens enlisted to fight.

Yellowbeard had seen up close just what these warrior monks were capable of - pushing aside boulders with just a touch of the hand - moving faster than the eye could see - rendering the wildest of animals tame - speaking without speaking. And their enchanted blades of light, capable of cutting through anything.

If the Huk were the ugliness that lurked beyond the world, the Jedi were the promise of something pure and good -

How naive Qaian had been back then.

-

It is later that she learns the names of the two Jedi, from the Royal library’s archives. 

It is even later that she learns the Republic deceived her Grandmother and so many others into doing their dirty work -

"Many years ago, before you were born, I was assigned to a planet on the edges of known space."

"You’re the Jedi in the photograph," Grievous realizes.

"I was."

How fitting that she and the Countess were to meet - it was Fate.


	10. Untitled

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaris has Grievous to herself now.

_I am a much better match for you than that giant oaf of a husband_ , Jaris thinks.

So it is to her delight that when the General returns from her trip to Kalee she can feel the anguished resignation rolling off her - head and shoulders dropped in utter defeat. The last of the Izvoshra - Sk’ar - was out of the picture.

When a Sith desires another being, distinctions such as “marriage” meant nothing. There were ways to  _take_ without violence - and certainly the General thought it was her decision to slam the door in Sk’ar’s face, tell him that there was a higher cause she had to serve. How romantic.

If Grievous had been a Sith apprentice, Sidious would have considered it cheating. Sidious would have demanded Grievous bring back the heads of everyone in her clan, then it’d have been a real sacrifice. But this would suffice.

"When the war is over, I promise that you will be free to return to your people," Jaris says. "You made the right decision."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jaris is nasty. This takes place around year into the war, after Hypori. Grievous has just told Sk'ar that she is leaving for a long time.


	11. Something resembling joy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sleeping together.

The bed can support the weight of two bodies. The Countess sleeps with her back to Qaian, hands hanging over the side of the bed. The mattress creaks and sags something awful as Qaian shifts on it - made of metal parts and circuitry.

Qaian wraps her arms around the other - gingerly, so as not to crush the seemingly frail human woman. The strip light above the bedpost has been turned off, so that the two of them lie in darkness. But not total darkness.

They can hear each others breathing - this is how the Countess knows that the presence behind her is alive - from the soft intake outtake of air. And with the pits under her eyes the General can see the other’s silhouette, round and warm.

They lie together. The General keeping watch in the night, watching the other sleep, breathing steady and unlabored. It is in these moments she feels something resembling joy -

But morning comes, and the Countess rises to change out of her silk nightgown and fix her hair. The General rises as well, mind now turned to the real business of war. The two return to their stations.


	12. Tomb Sweeping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tomb-sweeping day for a Kaleesh Khagan.

Qaian went back to her house on Kalee for Tomb Sweeping. She and Bentilais moved into an abandoned Yam’rii burrow in the dry hills - the house was cool and airy year-round, like that feeling when summer is turning into fall. White and yellow flowers were growing outside the gate when she stepped through.

Qaian put on a headscarf and spent the day with her mother, Layla, who was preparing something in the kitchen. The ceiling of the house was barely higher than Qaian’s head. The children were out at school and Bentilais had not yet returned from work. Layla acted as if everything was as usual - like nothing had changed since - well. None of Qaian’s clothes fit any more.

The ancestral altar with a portrait of Qays was still there. Though his body had been burnt to ash on the funeral pyre, his framed photograph was surrounded by fruit and flowers, an incense holder with lit incense, figurines of the family’s patron gods. Grandma Yellowbeard and Ronderu were there too: a full house.

This year, there were seven new additions to the altar. Qaian ran her hand up to each framed photograph, recalling the names, the stories. They had been good companions. One day she’d join them - but that day was a long way away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This takes place a year after the shuttle crash.


End file.
